Motivational Style as a Key Consideration for Leaders

“Do you play to win – or not to lose?” ask social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson and Columbia University professor Tory Higgins in this intriguing Harvard Business Review article. “People answer these questions in very different ways, and that’s the challenge at the heart of good management – whether you’re managing your own performance or someone else’s.” [Although this article is written with adults in mind, consider how it might apply to K-12 students.]

Halvorson and Higgins believe personality assessments like the Myers-Briggs aren’t helpful for predicting how people will behave and helping them improve. A more useful personality assessment, they believe, is one that tells whether people are motivated by a competitive urge to win or a defensive urge to avoid failure – promotion or prevention. Here are some attributes of each personality type:

Promotion-focused:

• Eager, optimistic
• Play to win, dream big, set goals that create a path to advancement
• Focus on the rewards that will come with success
• Open to new opportunities
• Comfortable taking risks
• Work quickly
• Think creatively, consider lots of alternatives, good at brainstorming
• Seek positive feedback and lose steam without it
• More prone to make errors
• Less likely to think things through
• Plan only for best-case scenarios, don’t have a Plan B
• Feel dejected or depressed when things go wrong
• Tend to take jobs that are artistic and investigative in which thinking outside the box is valued, and creative and innovative thinking is the key to success.

Prevention-focused:

• Uncomfortable with praise or optimism
• Vigilant, play not to lose, to hang onto what they have and maintain the status quo
• Worry about what might go wrong if they don’t work hard enough, aren’t careful
• Stick to tried-and-true ways of doing things
• See goals as responsibilities
• Risk-averse, concentrate on staying safe
• Work slowly and deliberately, are thorough, meticulous, accurate
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Able to tell the difference between good and bad brainstormed ideas
• Prepared for the worst
• Stressed by short deadlines
• Feel worried or anxious when things go wrong
• Tend to take jobs that are conventional and realistic, requiring knowledge of rules and regulations, careful execution, thoroughness and attention to detail, and where avoiding catastrophic errors is the key to success. 

All of us are promotion-focused and prevention-focused at different times, say Halvorson and Higgins, but we tend to have a dominant motivational focus. “It affects what we pay attention to, what we value, and how we feel when we succeed or fail,” they say. “It determines our strengths and weaknesses, both personally and professionally. And it’s why the decisions and preferences of our differently focused colleagues can seem odd at times.” 

This theory is helpful in planning how to get the best out of colleagues – and ourselves. “Motivational fit enhances and sustains both the eagerness of the promotion-minded and the vigilance of the prevention-minded,” say Halvorson and Higgins, “making work seem more valuable and thus boosting both performance and enjoyment. When the motivational strategies we use don’t align with our dominant focus, we are less likely to achieve our goals.” Here is their specific advice in several areas:

• Inspiration – People respond to storytelling, but the type of story is important. “As an individual, you naturally pay attention to the kind of story that resonates most with you,” say Halvorson and Higgins. “But as a colleague or a boss, you should think about whether the stories you share with others are motivational for them.” Promotion-focused individuals like to hear stories about inspirational role models – for example, a uniquely effective team leader. Prevention-focused individuals, on the other hand, will be inspired by a cautionary tale about those they should not emulate because of mistakes they made. 

• Boss-employee match – People work best when their boss or mentor has the same motivational style. Promotion-minded people thrive with transformational leaders who “support creative solutions, have a long-term vision, and look for ways to shake things up,” say Halvorson and Higgins. Prevention-minded people work best under transactional leaders who “emphasize rules and standards, protect the status quo, tend toward micromanagement, discourage errors, and focus on effectively reaching more-immediate goals.” 

From 20 years of research on leaders in more than 12,500 private, public, military, and government organizations in 21 countries, they have identified some bad combinations:

• Promotion Boss + Prevention Employee = Underperformance: The boss isn’t threatened by this employee, but may overlook and underutilize strengths and not give clear enough direction.
• Prevention Boss + Promotion Employee = Power Play: The boss may feel threatened by this employee’s creativity and smother the person with micromanagement.
• Promotion Employee + Prevention Employee = Tension: Contrasting approaches among same-status colleagues lead to frustration, barriers, and challenges.
• Promotion Boss + Prevention Boss = Power Struggle: When two bosses have different styles, one may undermine while the other criticizes, often surreptitiously. 

If styles are different, the boss needs to subtly adapt his or her style to suit each employee’s focus.

• Framing goals – “Sometimes even minor tweaks in how you think about a goal or the language you use to describe it can make a difference,” say Halvorson and Higgins. One study with German semiprofessional soccer teams compared two different messages about penalty kicks:

• “You are going to shoot five penalties. Your aspiration is to score at least three times.”
• “You are going to shoot five penalties. Your obligation is to not miss more than twice.” 

Players did significantly better when the admonition matched their motivational style – especially with prevention-minded players: they scored nearly twice as often when they got the well-matched message. “So when you are trying to keep yourself or someone else motivated,” say Halvorson and Higgins, “remember that promotion-focused people need to think about what they are doing in terms of positives (what they aspire to, how best to accomplish the task) and prevention-focused people should instead think about negatives (potential mistakes, obstacles to avoid).” 

• Feedback – Promotion-focused people respond well to praise for excellent work-in-progress and being told they are on target to reach a goal. Prevention-focused people, on the other hand, work better under criticism, being told they are below target but can catch up, and being reminded that things may not turn out well. Being told they would succeed actually undermines their motivation. “As a manager,” say Halvorson and Higgins, “you should always give honest feedback, but you might want to adjust your emphasis to maximize motivation. Don’t be overly effusive when praising the prevention-focused, and don’t gloss over mistakes they’ve made or areas that need improvement. Meanwhile, don’t be overly critical when delivering bad news to the promotion-focused – they need reassurance that you have confidence in their ability and recognize their good work.”

• Incentives – It’s important that these are aligned to motivational style. A person might self-motivate by saying, “If I finish this project by Friday, I will treat myself to a spa day” or alternatively, “If I don’t finish this project by Friday, I will spend the weekend cleaning out the garage.” The same matching should go for incentives offered to subordinates.

“Promotion-focused and prevention-focused people are crucial for every organization’s success,” conclude Halvorson and Higgins, “despite the potential for infighting and poor communication… The key is to understand and embrace our personality types and those of our colleagues, and to bring out the best in each of us.” 

“Know What Really Motivates You” by Heidi Grant Halvorson and Tory Higgins in Harvard Business Review, March 2013 (Vol. 91, #3, p. 117-120), no e-link available

From the Marshall Memo #473